8. 7. Statement: The Welsh Health Survey

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:28 pm on 21 June 2016.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 5:28, 21 June 2016

Thank you for those particular points and questions. On the selling of school playing fields, this is a Government that is investing in the infrastructure of our school estates, and I’ve visited a whole number of areas where we’re actually seeing an improvement in people’s ability to use outdoor space in particular for physical activity and recreation. There’s no excuse to be given for a lack of physical activity amongst school-age children in terms of school playing fields at this point in time. I actually think we need to concentrate on what we can positively do in the way that the curriculum works and the way that families work for schools, and with the broader message we have about the importance of physical activity and recreation, and to recognise that it isn’t simply an issue for schools. It is an issue that, by and large, most of these lessons about life are learned outside school, and it’s about that working alongside the family to understand the impact, the positive impact, of physical activity and recreation.

I’ve dealt with the e-cigarettes issue and I’ve been very clear: we’ll keep the evidence under review, and as I said earlier, you’ll have noticed in my statements that just under six in 10 e-cigarette users are also smokers as well. So, we need to understand if there is a relationship with quitting, and if there is not, we also need to understand the long-term impact on people’s health of e-cigarette use. That is part, I think, of what even those who were opposed to the measures of the previous public health Bill on e-cigarettes will have been concerned about: the way in which there was pretty clear evidence that some e-cigarette manufacturers were targeting young people in the way that the flavours were actively marketed. There are real and serious issues for us to consider here, so let’s not pretend that we should not do that. But as I said earlier, we’ll consider the evidence on e-cigarette use and their impact.

On the national survey and the ending of the specific Welsh health survey, we took a view on having a more efficient way of conducting information and understanding what the public think and do. I don’t think you could describe a national survey with detailed information of over 12,000 adults as not being something that is robust and high quality. It’s certainly our expectation that we’ll have a robust and high-quality national survey. If you ever have an opportunity—I don’t know if opportunity is the right word—but, if you have an opportunity to talk to a Welsh Government statistician, I think you’ll find that they’re very interested in the quality of their data and they can talk to you at length. I’d be very happy to arrange for you to have a very long session with a Welsh Government statistician to highlight their view on the national survey if you really are concerned about its impact and its usefulness for understanding health behaviours in the past and what it tells us about the future of our public services.